THE WOODEITFF FAMILY. 325 



A variety called lacinidta, with the leaves finely and doubly pinnatifid, is not 

 uncommon in gardens. Old editions of Withering mention it as wild " in hedges 

 near Manchester." Another variety, having the foliage variegated with white, 

 occurs sometimes in shrubberies. There is a plant of it by the sloping walk 

 below Disley Church. 



4. Wild Guelder-rose — (Viburnum Opulus.) 

 Moist woods and glens, banks of rivers, and by streams, very com- 

 mon. Fl. June. 



E. B. V. 332. 



When in bloom, this is one of our most beautiful wild flowering-trees, the large 

 white corymbs gleaming from afar amid the green foliage of the " leafy month 

 of June;" and when hung with its lucid fruit in autumn, and the leaves aspire 

 to be blood-red, the spectacle is hardly excelled by the mountaiu-ash. The 

 "Guelder-rose" or "snowball-tree" of the gardens is the same species, with the 

 whole of the flowers changed into the large flat neuter condition, causing the 

 cyme to assume a globular shape. It has been found wild in Mere Clough. (J. P.) 



Several foreign honeysuckles add to the beauty and sweetness of our gardens, 

 and a good many pretty shrubs of the kind called the " Fly-honeysuckle," having 

 the flowers in axillary pairs. The neatest is the native Lonicera XyUsteum, 

 (E. B. xiii. 916.) distinguished by its downy foUage. To this family belong also 

 the snowberry, that cheerful bush which towards autumn is dressed all over with 

 milk-white berries the size of a marble ; and the handsome undershrubs called 

 Weigelia and Leycesteria. Old-fashioned Viburnums of different kinds are hke- 

 wise scattered about, and abimdance of that universal favourite, the Laurustinus, 

 but the latter is rather too tender for our winters. The common garden honey- 

 suckle is the Lonicera Caprifolium, (E. B. xii. 799.) a native plant, though rarely 

 found wild. It is distinguished by the pairs of upper leaves being " connate," or 

 united at the base so as to foi'm a cup or flat plate round the stem, which 

 apparently passes through the centre of it. The snowberry is the Symphoria 

 racemosa. 



XCIX.— THE WOODRUFF FAMILY. GalidcecB or Stellaiie. 



These plants take the name of " Stellatse" from the whorled or star- 

 like character of their foliage. They are all herbaceous, with weak, 

 slender, angular stems that usually trail or scramble among stouter 

 plants. The leaves are never less than four together, and usually 

 eight or nine, about an inch long, narrow-lanceolate, exstipulate, 

 sessile, and pointed ; the flowers small, regular, tetramerous, some- 

 times axillary and sessile, sometimes in little corymbs, more frequently 

 in large loose panicles. Stamens four ; style single, cleft at the top, 

 with a capitate stigma to each branch ; ovary below the flower ; fruit 



